sarkhozy insiders reported strauss-kahn "rape" before the arrest was made

[Hannah Bell]

The allegation with the most meat comes from tabloid website Le Post, which notes that the first person to tweet the arrest was an activist in the French right-wing UMP party, Jonathan Pinet. He tweeted it before the time of the arrest, Le Post says.

The first person to retweet Pinet, according to Le Post still, was Arnaud Dassier, a spin doctor who had been implicated in previous embarrassing revelations on DSK's luxurious lifestyle. The first website to mention the news was 24heuresactu, a right-wing blog, way before the New York Post, which was the first US outlet to break the news.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/plot-dominique-strauss-kahn-complot-2011-5#ixzz1MaPmBhcp


Le Post report here:

http://www.lepost.fr/article/2011/05/15/2494988_dsk-arrete-ou-les-preuves-d-une-operation-minutieusement-orchestree-par-l-ump.html

[LisaL]

1. And? The arrest took place almost five hours after alleged attack.

No doubt by that time many people knew.

[Hannah Bell]

5. no doubt. people at the hotel. people in the police. but sarkozy people were the first to report.

[sufrommich]

33. Have you seen the tweet with the time stamp? Surely you would

demand such proof.

[jberryhill]

42. The original long form tweet /nt

[jberryhill]

41. Sofitel is a part of the ACCOR empire

It is entirely possible that news of the ruckus at the hotel reached connected people in France well before the arrest.

[Distant Observer]

36. Anyone know Sarkhozy dirty tricks history. Is it even imaginable?

[DontTreadOnMe]

2. How convenient...

So Le Post was the first "news" source... anyone else smell fish?

[Hannah Bell]

4. no, le post wasn't the first news source. le post is reporting on the first news source,

which was a twitterer.

then a retweet, then a french blog.

then the ny post.

"le post" is a french outlet.

The Post is a French news website , powered by a writing and information posted by users.

Launched Sept. 9, 2007, it is the product of World Interactive , a joint subsidiary of the company Le Monde and Lagardere Group (minority) that is dedicated to publishing websites <1> , <2> , <3 > .

He was co-founded by Raphael Benedict, formerly in charge of Internet strategy group Dauphiné Libéré <4> He announced, Wednesday, March 3, 2010, he left the editorship of the site on 1.fr Europe <5> . In October 2010, he was replaced by Philippe Mathon, formerly editor of the site Point.fr <6> .

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Post&ei=XBTSTYfPNcffiALqk6DkCg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFkQ7gEwBw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dle%2Bpost%26hl%3Den%26prmd%3Divns

[Tripod]

3. I expect that he was drunk!

Maybe a black out. He tried to escape on a plane. Could be. He was on an air line to france. Left his phone, and other personal items in his room, behind. And I hope that the worker was not raped. OMG!

[JDPriestly]

8. The story is that he had lunch with his daughter soon after the

allege incident.

As for leaving his phone, it was one of these throw-aways that you buy when you travel. I don't think his personal, French phone would have worked in the US.

Apparently his daughter is a student at Columbia.

I don't personally care that much one way or the other, but based on my limited personal experience observing men (and I do think they are an interesting bunch), I find the story inconsistent and hard to believe. It could be true, but there are some very strange things about it.

I don't think we have the straight version of the facts yet.

[Tripod]

9. I agree with you. About the facts.

Every person in high power, is a target. That is sad! I hope that it did not happen.

[LisaL]

10. If it were a "throw away" then WTF did he call the hotel

asking them to bring it to him?

[Hannah Bell]

12. we don't know. these are just the various stories out in the media/internets.

they contradict each other.

see the problem with taking any of them for gospel?

[LisaL]

13. It has been consistently reported he called the hotel about his

cell phone. The hotel let the police know where he was.
That's how he got arrested. What's contradictory about it, exactly?

[Hannah Bell]

15. it has also been reported that he had several cell phones & the ny phone

was just a throw-away.

the contradiction is as you stated.

why would he call about a throw-away?

[sabrina 1]

48. There is also the fact that Strauss Khan predicted a smear

exactly like this, in April. Apparently he was concerned that Sarkozy's people would pay a woman to say he raped her. He also had his attorneys threaten Sarkozy with legal action if they did not stop smearing him in the press.

IMF's Strauss-Khan Facing French Smear Campaign - ally

Strauss Kahn, front-runner in surveys of voting intentions ahead of next April's election, is taking legal action over media reports which portray him as having a luxury lifestyle.

"There is now a totally structured and orchestrated campaign, which has already been announced by Mr Sarkozy and his closest allies, to attack the character of Strauss-Kahn, Socialist politician Jean-Marie Le Guen told Europe 1 radio.

This was before he was accused in NY. Then there was this:

IMF chief 'feared political opponent would pay a woman more than $1m to allege rape'

But as Strauss-Kahn faced a 15-year prison sentence - which would signify the end of his ambition to become French president next year - conspiracy theories abounded.
Liberation, the left-wing daily newspaper, published details on off-the-record comments made by Strauss-Kahn as recently as April 28th.

Discussing his plans to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy as Socialist candidate for the presidency in 2012, he said he imagined ‘a woman who had been raped in a car park and who was offered between €500,000 and €1,000,000 to make up such a story.’

Because he was the clear favourite to beat Mr Sarkozy, Strauss-Kahn feared he would be subjected to a smear campaign by the President and his Interior Minister, Glaude Gueant.

Pretty prescient of him to fear almost exactly what happened ~ lots of room right now for doubt. As there should be at this stage of any prosecution, regardless of who is the accused.

[Princess Turandot]

6. According to a translation of the Le Post article, the 'tweet' went out at 5PM ET..

the NYPD had been called to the hotel a few hours before that. According to Reuters, Strauss-Kahn was removed from the Air France flight by police at 4:40PM. So the tweet did not occur before police involvement or before Strauss-Kahn was in police custody.

[Hannah Bell]

11. and "in custody" isn't "under arrest".

[LisaL]

14. They removed him from his plane and he couldn't leave.

How is that not under arrest?

[Hannah Bell]

17. then why not say "under arrest"?

but i believe the controversy is, how did a french twitterer learn that dsk had been taken "into custody" less than 20 minutes after that happened at the airport?

because one would assume that the process was, dsk taken off plane, put in police vehicle, take to police station for processing.

how far is it from the airport to the police station? 15 minutes or more?

because one would presume that the french twitterer got the info via phone/email/im, which would take at least 4 minutes...

and presumably the police weren't talking to anyone on the ride to the station...

so the presumption would be that if the twitter posted 19 minutes after the police apprehended dsk on the plane, and he posted as soon as he learned it, then he learned it about 15 minutes after it happened, while the police were driving dsk to the station.

or maybe he learned it from someone other than the police, from someone who knew of the plan to arrest, & waited a bit to post until he thought dsk would be in custody.

[jberryhill]

44. Are you joking - WHO do you think sits in the first class cabin of an Air France jet?

Aside from the fact that the hotel management and staff would definitely know people in France, I would expect that the first class cabin of an Air France jet at JFK is definitely populated by some well-connected French folk.

It is pretty normal that the last thing people do before the plane leaves the ramp is communicate their current flight status to folks at their destination. While electronics are supposed to go off when the cabin door closes, you see lots of folks texting and tweeting right up to taxiing.

And terminology of US criminal procedure is not some sort of universal knowledge.

That would be a very juicy thing for someone to communicate, no?

[Hannah Bell]

18. 4:59. verifiable. 19 minutes after dsk was removed from the plane.

not enough time, i don't think, for them to have driven back to a police station from the airport (not sure what airport or station or i would check the mileage).

[suffragette]

7. Arnaud Dassier also worked on Sarkozy's campaign as the internet

communications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/world/europe/17france.html

Another question raised was about the timing of the flood of Twitter posts around the scandal, with the first one reportedly sent by a French student who is a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right party.

It was at 4:59 p.m. New York time that J_Pinet posted this message on Twitter: “A friend in the United States just told me that DSK was arrested by police in a hotel an hour ago.”

Twenty-four minutes later, a post by Arnaud Dassier, who ran Mr. Sarkozy’s online election campaign in 2007, spread the news further, apparently before any New York newspaper. Mr. Dassier is a shareholder in the Web site Atlantico.fr, which Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s allies accused this month of disseminating photographs of him and his wife getting into a Porsche in a bid to tarnish his reputation with common voters.

On Monday, Atlantico published what it said were reports from the police and the French Consulate in New York about the case, asserting that Mr. Strauss-Kahn had scratches on his back and left traces of DNA behind.

[Ghost Dog]

16. Arnaud Dassier 'explains' the circumstances in Le Post here:

http://www.lepost.fr/article/2011/05/16/2496232_affaire-dsk-arnaud-dassier-se-defend-d-avoir-orchestre-un-complot.html

"Samedi soir, j'étais devant ma télévision en train de regarder l'Eurovision que je commentais en rigolant sur Twitter. Et je vois le message de Jonathan Pinet -dont je suis le compte depuis deux jours- passer. Je lui envoie alors un message privé pour lui demander des précisions et savoir si sa source est fiable. Il me répond que c'est le cas et que cela vient d'un ami à lui, qui l'a entendu d'un employé du Sofitel. Il s'agit d'une agression sexuelle, me précise Jonathan. À partir de ces infos, je décide de le tweeter très prudemment <"Apparemment, DSK à NY c'est du très très lourd", ndlr>. J'en reste là, ne mets plus aucun message avant de me coucher et le lendemain, au réveil, je vois que ça s'enflamme et que je me retrouve cité dans une théorie du complot..."

Which I translate as:

"Saturday night I was in front of my television watching Eurovision on which I was commenting laughingly on Twitter. And I see Jonathan Pinet's message appear - I had been following his twitter account over the last two days. I then send him a private message asking for clarification and whether his source is reliable. He replied that that is the case and that it comes from a friend of his who has heard it from an employee of the Sofitel. It concerns an act of sexual assault, specified Jonathan. On the basis of this information, I chose to tweet very prudently <"Apparently, DSK in NY it's very, very heavy", note>. I left it at that, I sent not one single message more before going to bed and the next day, on waking, I see that the story is explosive and I find myself quoted in a conspiracy theory ... "

So, this Sarkozy spin-doctor, deeply involved in the 'DSK enters friend's Porsche' photo-'scandal', has for some reason been closely following this Jonathan Pinet's (who has spies at the Sofitel) twitter feed over the previous two days and hears and double-checks the news of the 'sexual assault' and 'arrest' of DSK. So he decides to send his 'prudent tweet' only, and go to bed. Oh yeah. Very typical 'spin-doctor'-type behavior, there.

O8)

[suffragette]

19. Agree with your comment on this - only 2 days following, then this. Quelle coincidence!

Also, the pattern is similar to the Porsche in that someone else tweets first, then he follows and spreads it much farther.


http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2011/05/15/comment-l-avenir-de-dsk-s-est-soudain-assombri_1522356_823448.html

Here's a google translation about the Porsche part:
In fact, it took a nothing for it becomes a "case": a photograph, released in May 3, Le Parisien , shows the couple Strauss-Kahn, who was in Paris on April 28, when the snapshot before a car from Porsche. A blogger rather directed to the right, Emery Doligé, takes the shot on Twitter . Arnaud Dassier, "communicating" and linchpin of the campaign web Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, follows. The two men are "up" information on the microblogging network throughout the day. The next day the reporter Hervé Gattegno Point in fact a chronicle on RTL . The case is launched.

I'm sure you could do a much better translation than the poor Google one.

[seabeyond]

20. who the fuck cares. if this man assaulted this made... really, who the fuck cares. nt

[Distant Observer]

24. CHARGED, ALLEGED CRIME. Can we stop perverting the justice system more that it already is

This guy is charge with a disgusting crime. That alone has destroyed his life as much as he is alleged to have destroyed the life of the accuser. BUT HE HAS NOT BEEN FOUND GUILTY. THERE IS NOT EVEN ENOUGH EVIDENCE IN THE PUBIC DOMAIN for personal judgement.

There is much more evidence of crime against GW and pals and many Wall Street Titans, and they are not jailed with NO BAIL.

[seabeyond]

25. i am not sittin in a court room, on the jury. nt

[Distant Observer]

26. INNOCENT TILL PROVEN GUILTY is not just for court jury. IT'S A PRINCIPLE OF JUSTICE IN US

[seabeyond]

28. am i stopping him from getting a fair trial. must i make excuses for his assault to justify

the "innocent" part. does the victim get any consideration in your innocent or does she not matter to you at all.

you can cap and scream all you want. you want the excuses to fly. making him a victim. and want everyone else to shut the fuck up.

how does that work in your world

[blondeatlast]

37. Incorrect. Think of GWBush. Is he guilty of war crimes--or is he entitled to a comfortable life free

of public opinion?

The "presumption of innocence" is only for the justice system. The public is free to form and hold opinions--whether they be ignorant, stupid, or not.

[jberryhill]

46. Bull - it is a rule of procedure for criminal trials

The presumption of innocence is a procedural rule which places the burden of production and persuasion on the prosecution.

If you punch me on the street, I am not required to think you are innocent of a goddamned thing, and neither is anyone else.

[jberryhill]

45. This is not the "justice system" - it is DU

Anyone is perfectly entitled to hold an express their opinion of the matter.

[seabeyond]

21. first you defend he had an alibi. you excused he is hot, no woman would be forced to give bj

now that he says she "consented" to assault, you bring up this stuff.

how about the victim. does she factor in at all in your world. women that have been assaulted by him in the past. do they not matter at all.

[Broderick]

22. +1

[meow mix]

27. +rec its just the latest opportunity for...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyophYBP_w4&feature=related

the effective ones pick thier battles

[sufrommich]

23. Good Lord, you're really on a roll today. nt

[Distant Observer]

29. If we accept DRUG STINGS then Political SEX STINGS should be OK, I guess

[seabeyond]

30. he was roped into assaulting this woman. that is right, you put out shit, people suppose to shut up

and not call you on shit cause we have to wait for it to go to court.

thank you for so graciously and succintly making my point from my post above.

[Distant Observer]

34. READ the article. I was just commenting on THE ARTICLE'S SUGGESTION re CRIME

that a political sting could be involved. That does not excuse the CRIME of sexual assault.

Drug lords don't get out of jail because they get caught in a sting.

In France this is much like John Kerry being caught in a sex scandal during the Bush/Kerry campaign.
There are political as well and personal and criminal dimensions.

Don't you get it?

[seabeyond]

35. really, lets just forget an history of this behavior and his privilege to do this to women

and he is owed the right to assault women and media aware of it ignoring it and having peers tell him to be careful of this behavior in the u.s.

must be a fuckin sting.

certainly following the logial line, there.

[Codeine]

31. Posting in ALL CAPS just makes YOU LOOK like an IDIOTIC NUTJOB. nt

[meow mix]

32. good luck with that presidential run

maybe you can get him a job under a nice bridge.

[Nye Bevan]

38. Hannah, why do you constantly defend this rich, fat, serially-groping, banker-turned-rapist? (nt)

[sufrommich]

39. Because he's a socialist. Mustn't soil the brand even if it

means defending a jerk like this guy.

[Nye Bevan]

40. Lloyd Blankfein & co should start referring to themselves "socialists"

This will win them quite a few defenders on DU.

[leftstreet]

43. He's a Limousine Socialist, at best

not really a socialist at all

and not that it really matters

[Odin2005]

47. Hannah, why are to keeping on trying to defend this SINO fucker?